JONATHAN HOUSE
– Dall’inizio della crisi finanziaria nel 2008, sono fallite circa 125 000 società, pari a circa il 10% del totale spagnolo. La seconda maggiore causa di fallimento è il mancato pagamento da parte delle amministrazioni pubbliche.
I problemi nelle amministrazioni periferiche potrebbero pesare sugli sforzi del governo centrale di ridurre il deficit al 3% del PIL entro il 2013.
● 8 000 amministrazioni municipali hanno un debito verso le imprese di circa €13 MD, oltre 1/3 del loro debito totale (€36MD).
● Questo contribuisce a deprimere economia e occupazione spagnole complessive, oltre che l’affidabilità creditizia internazionale della Spagna.
– Le amministrazioni cittadine spagnole devono 3,4 MD, di cui €1 MD è più di un anno di debito alle società fornitrici di servizi per raccolta immondizie, pulizia, fogne (oltre 100 000 addetti) – Actividades de Construccion y Servicios SA, Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas SA, Sacyr-Vallehermoso SA e Ferrovial SA – (informazione data da Aselip, un’associazione del settore).
– Secondo la Federazione spagnola dei comuni, le città pagavano oltre €7 MD/anno per servizi per legge che dovrebbero essere forniti da altri livelli amministrativi, compresi scuole per infanzia , alcuni servizi di polizia e di emergenza.
– Le città sono riuscite a finanziare questi servizi grazie agli introiti garantiti dal forte aumento dei permessi edilizi del decennio scorso, uno dei maggiori boom edilizi in Europa. Con lo scoppio della bolla speculativa, le amministrazioni hanno attuato tagli alla spesa in tutti i settori.
Il primo ministro Zapatero ha riconosciuto alle amministrazioni cittadine un modesto aumento della quota di introiti fiscali, dopo i forti tagli di questo e dell’anno scorso, con un credito di €3MD, non ancora erogato.
Spanish Towns Struggle Under Crushing Debts
By JONATHAN HOUSE
BRUNETE, Spain—This leafy town on the outskirts of Madrid, where residents live in comfortable homes behind high walls, marks the next front in Spain’s fiscal crisis.
Struggling to rein in costs, Brunete has cut library and park workers’ hours. Instead of fixing the roof of city hall, town administrators have cordoned off the sidewalk in front to keep tiles from falling on passersby. More gravely, it is as much as three years in arrears to providers of building supplies and electrical services. Soon, it says, it may be unable to pay city workers.
– Across Spain, towns that once reaped the benefit of housing-boom revenues are slashing budgets, cutting services and racking up debt. Together, according to Spain’s central bank, the country’s 8,000 municipal governments owe companies some €13 billion ($18 billion), representing more than one-third of their €36 billion total debt.
– Economists say the situation is already suppressing Spain’s economy and employment levels. UBS Bank SA forecasts that sharp fiscal adjustments at all levels of Spanish government—not only cities, but also the regional and federal governments—risk pushing Spain back into recession in the third quarter, following timid growth in first and second quarters.
– In the longer run, fears are mounting that the government may have to mount some sort of local bailout. Such a move would have negative consequences for Spain’s international creditworthiness, according to Giada Giani, economist at Citigroup in London.
– "The sovereign debt crisis is not over," Ms. Giani said. "As we’ve seen, any negative news runs the risk of being magnified."
– Brunete’s plight underscores how little room Spain has to maneuver its way out of crisis. The country has already attempted to repair its fiscal woes by retooling its troubled savings banks and overhauling archaic labor laws.
– Now Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero is slashing Spain’s budget to keep in the good graces of the European Union[e] and international lenders.
– While the government has offered cities a modest increase in their share of tax revenues after deep cuts this year and last, opening the taps any wider risks compromising the country’s ambitious austerity push. But by reining in spending, it risks prolonging the pain to companies and workers across the economy.
– On the other end of many cities’ unpaid bills stand some of Spain’s biggest companies. Aselip, an association of sanitation-service providers—which representsunits of Actividades de Construccion y Servicios SA, Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas SA, Sacyr-Vallehermoso SA and Ferrovial SA—says these companies are owed €3.4 billion by Spanish cities, €1 billion of which is more than one year past due.
– Unless they receive payments, these companies say, they can’t continue to finance operations that employ more than 100,000 people collecting garbage, cleaning streets and maintaining parks. "We’ve been using our own capital to finance the cities," says Aselip spokesman Francisco Jardon. "But our own sources of finance have dried up."
– Over the years, towns and cities started footing the bills for services they say other layers of government should have been providing. According to the Spanish Federation of Municipalities, cities pay more than €7 billion annually for services that they say should, by law, be provided by other levels of government, including nursery schools and some types of police and emergency-response services.
Municipal leaders say that for years, they stepped in with their own funds rather than leaving constituents without services. "If one of the neighbors here comes in with a personal problem or need, you try to help him," says Felix Gavilanes, 61, mayor of Brunete and owner of several local bars and restaurants.
– Cities were able to meet these payments for much of the decade as revenues from new housing permits surged amid one of Europe’s biggest construction booms. Brunete created a new emergency-response team, while providing cleaning services and various types of building materials for local schools.
But the town also paid out to build a gymnasium, library and covered swimming pool. Town officials say they paid €50,000 to €60,000 per year for summer fiestas that featured bullfights and live music, including an appearance by former AC/DC bassist Larry Van Kriedt.
– Critics say towns overextended by spending unwisely, leaving themselves and their suppliers vulnerable. "It’s scandalous that they say they can’t pay their suppliers but maintain their fiestas," says Mr. Jardon of the sanitation providers’ association.
– Brunete responded to the housing crash with across-the-board spending cuts. The library now opens six hours a day instead of 10. The town has terminated a contract with the company that provided park-maintenance services and has given the job to existing town employees; parks are now watered and cleaned every three days instead of daily. For the past two years, the town has cut bullfights and live music from its annual fiesta.
Even so, Mr. Gavilanes says the city hasn’t been able to pay bills to several companies and is three years behind on payments to one building-supplies company. "We’re even having trouble paying our employees at the end of the month," he says.
Brunete’s pain is being felt by dozens of small companies in the area.
– "Now when they [city hall] need to check over their lighting systems, or maybe just change a cable or two, their own maintenance staff does it," says Jaime Aparicio, the 37-year-old owner of Aparicio Instalaciones Electricas, a family-run electrical-supplies and services provider.
Mr. Aparicio says Brunete owes his company some €3,000, with some of the debt dating back two years. Overall, Mr. Aparicio says his sales have fallen around 50% in the past two years. He has laid off four employees. The only remaining workers are his father and a part-time bookkeeper.
– Some 125,000 companies—or around 10% of Spain’s total—have gone out of business since the economic downturn began in 2008. The second-leading cause of failure among Spain’s small companies is late payments by public administrations, according to the Spanish Confederation of Small And Midsize Enterprises.
– Such troubles have the potential to weigh on the central government as it attempts to slash its budget to deficit to the 3%-of-GDP limit for European Union[e] countries by 2013.
– Earlier this year, the government promised its cities a €3 billion credit line to help them pay suppliers, such as sanitation providers, that have threatened to cut services. But the funds haven’t been delivered yet.
Juan Bravo, finance chief for Madrid as well as vice chairman of the finance committee of Spain’s Federation of Municipalities and Provinces, says the money is urgently needed to pay garbage collectors and others and avert a crisis of "public order."
"If someone sues the City of Madrid for interest on late payment," Mr. Bravo says, "I will turn around a sue the central government for the same amount."